smoking area
by sky-metaphors
Summary: Breakdowns are for people who are not Hijikata Toshirou. He has things to do, places to be, broken little sadists to take care of. [Based on the events from their velocity. Modern AU]
1. Chapter 1

_**smoking area**_

 _A/N: Sorry for disappearing; life kinda got in the way hehe._

 _And oh, a warning: this contains their velocity spoilers, so you might wanna read that first. It's long but tolerable, I promise._

 _Enjoy!_

* * *

JUNE 11, seven days post-incident

The ashtray doesn't shatter when he throws it. It thunks against the wall, smacks him right in the face, and clatters to the floor.

Sonovabitch, that actually _hurts_. Hijikata rubs his nose but can't even muster the energy to make a sound. He sits on the bed and eyes the ashtray, which sits before him, clearly unimpressed by his attempt at a dramatic display.

"Shut the fuck up," he says to it.

It says nothing. Clearly it does not feel the need to sink to his level.

Hijikata blows out a breath, one of the many he finds himself holding these days. Dozens of inhales without exhales. Each one carries with it a faint scent of vanilla - the last piece of her in his home. The rest he gave away or burned.

Loss is practical that way.

The ring, however, he keeps. He wears it around his neck. _I was gonna get married. Now I'm not. She died. I'm doing fine, thanks._

It's the fastest way to tell them, that's all.

Hijikata stands and picks the ashtray up. It fits well in his palm, its cut-glass surface clear. She never approved of how often and how much he smokes, but she got him the ashtray anyway, because it looks like the one he bought with his first paycheck, the one he can't remember losing.

He fights the urge to throw it again. Instead, he puts it on top of his nightstand _that's for the living room, toshirou, really, what am I going to do with you?_ and walks out of the bedroom to the veranda, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter out. He lights one and leans on the railing, sucking in a breath full of smoke.

Clear. Calm. Cold.

This is the only way he can replay that entire day in his head. He has to, because no one else will. Because that day is his fuck-up. He has to go over the operation, the details, the orders he gave, the orders he didn't give, what he did, what he should have done, what he could have done.

Everyone around him skirts around the topic, afraid to even mention the damn date of the incident in his presence. Afraid to mention her. When his colleagues discuss it, they call her 'the hostage'. 'The civilian'. 'The casualty'. Hell, _he_ calls her that. Just to show them he can talk about the op like a professional. Like a leader. Like he knows what the fuck he's doing.

Smoke clouds his view of the city. He taps the cigarette on the railing, ash and ember falling away from the tip _that's what ashtrays are for, silly_ and exhales gray.

He waits for the air to clear and looks at the street below. Windows like dead eyes peer from buildings with dead neon signs. A man in a suit hobbles down the sidewalk, laughing at a joke made several drinks ago. He grabs streetlamps for support and grins at them. Every single one of them.

Hijikata watches the man's progress, mind adrift. This is the only way he can go through the wedding checklist. What is already done must be undone, reservations unmade, refundable deposits refunded. Dates marked on calendars are now dates without events. Deadlines have lost their gravity. The guest list: radio silence on his end. He has assumed they already know. Everyone on that list must have gotten wind of the news, one way or another.

It's the visions he can't do anything about. _Their_ visions. The design of a cake not yet ordered. The reception decor. The gifts for attendees. Her hair. Her dress. He hasn't even seen it once. She would have looked devastating in it. Her vows. His vows. The honeymoon in Hyogo. A week in Kinosaki Onsen. The long walks they were going to take. The taste of seawater in her mouth.

Fuck.

Loss builds in his chest. Accumulates. Rises up his throat like a skyscraper, almost leaves his mouth.

Fuck.

He should have been more careful. He should have planned more thoroughly. He should have foreseen the hostage angle. He should have found the mole sooner.

He struggles to breathe in. He almost doesn't want to, but he does it anyway.

The man in a suit has long rounded a corner and disappeared from his view, but Hijikata can still hear him laughing.

He breathes out, the sound too loud. Loss implodes and collapses on itself. It hurts more than it did when it built. But it has to be done. He will give himself time until he is the picture of composure.

Breakdowns are for people who are not Hijikata Toshirou. He has things to do, places to be, broken little sadists to take care of.

So he stands there, smoking, waiting for the sunrise, planning for a terrorist attack already foiled, unplanning a wedding that will never happen.

#

A/N: Consider me on semi-hiatus i.e. i'm busy but cannot stay away from these idiots. Originally, this was going to be a super long one-shot. Yeahhh that's not going to happen. Will be a series of vignettes-ish instead. Updates are guaranteed, but frequency and promptness will be, well, unguaranteed.

Haven't written anything in a while, so feedback on how I wrote Hijikata here would be appreciated. Too angsty? OOC? Not angsty enough? No feels? Whatever helps. Thanksss


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: It's been a while, you guys. Sorry for the long break, but, you know. Life and things. Anyway, since the world is going to hell I decided to reread Gintama to make myself laugh. I ended up crying most of the time, of course. And so I am back._

 _I feel like I've gotten quite rusty, but that's nothing practice won't fix._

 _I hope you enjoy anyway._

* * *

JUNE 14

Hijikata Toushirou is not a complete weirdo.

He takes pleasure in normal, everyday shit: copious volumes of mayonnaise, nicotine, the way light falls through windows and curtains, the sound a house makes when someone you love arrives, well-fitted uniforms, a beautifully crafted ashtray, the sound a house makes when you arrive to someone you love, long train rides, sushi and nicotine.

He wants to explain this to every stranger he passes, even though he's wearing his coat and no one can see the patches on his arms.

There are days when he doesn't feel like explaining himself to anyone, when the voices of everyone asking him how he's doing sounds like a distant ringing after a nearby explosion. But he knows to nod anyway, say he's doing just fine.

And then there are days like this, when he feels like stopping everyone in their tracks to talk to them.

 _I walked these streets with her. In the morning, after spending the night in my apartment, she insisted on walking home._

 _Oi, you! The soles of your shoes are touching the ground she stepped on—tread carefully, jackass!_

 _And you. You are buying from the bakery that sells her favorite spiced buns in the city, the old man who runs it didn't say anything when I told him about her, just gave me more buns than I know what to do with and some mayonnaise, and his fingers are brushing against your palm as he hands you your change, as he has surely touched dozens, hundreds of other hands in his lifetime including hers—_

 _Hey, don't throw your trash in that alley, there was a night the three of us spent hours there, hammered as hell, because Sougo kept throwing up and insisting he lived there, and it wasn't long before she was throwing up too, and Sougo declared he would never approve of someone who can't even vomit in solidarity with his sister, Sougo—_

Hijikata stops walking for the briefest second, then goes on. He shakes himself. His hand twitches toward his pockets where his lifeline waits, but he curls them into fists.

It's Sunday morning and the city is waking up. Sunlight scrapes against towering buildings. Windows come alive. Doors are opening and people are spilling across sidewalks and parking lots.

There is no rain. The sky is immense, is cloudless, is so blue it makes the mountain peaks look like old wounds. It's warm, but not hot.

On any other day like this Hijikata would be frantically turning the city inside-out looking for Sougo, or the freelancers, whichever party is more likely to destroy public property and/or cause irreparable chaos.

They would be making their own little crashes and explosions: bullets tearing through the silence, an umbrella smacking police officers from one district to another, tossed like ragdolls, sniper rifles twisted and bent into Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannons and hurled with blinding force and speed at whichever rooftop Sougo chose to impose his evil presence on.

Today is peaceful. Pedestrians discuss lives and travel and trees and themselves and other animals. Traffic is sparse. No brats screeching at each other in a pathetic attempt to disguise their flirting, just car engines singing. No vulgar permheads promising to fix his family's mess and making said mess exponentially worse, no flying dic—Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannons.

There is nothing and no one for the glasses to play straight man to.

For some reason, this is what makes Hijikata want to smoke even more.

* * *

As usual, on the front steps of the building the Okitas live in are one vulgar permhead, one just as vulgar semi-daughter, and a glasses-holder, the first two lounging like they own the place. The latter is standing to the side, looking contrite.

Hijikata stops. The China brat peers up at him from under her umbrella and nudges the permhead, who stops picking his nose and flicks his booger at Hijikata.

He dodges with ease. He can't find it in him to tell the asshat to go lick a urinal or engage in some other activity more useful to the society than existing. There are a lot of things he can't find in himself.

And as usual, he asks: "What are you doing here?"

The brat folds her arms. "Sunbathing. It is the season for tanning and such, yes?"

The glasses heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Oi, don't go forgetting your character setup all of a sudden."

The permhead digs back into his nostril. "Pattsan, don't just go stealing tsukkomi lines from canon."

It's the brat who doesn't look away, who hasn't looked away from Hijikata since the scene started. She says nothing, just stares at him.

Hijikata thinks of the state the sadistic little shit is in. He was worse in the first week, but he still refuses to get up. Or even talk. He just lies there, on a couch that faces street-level windows, and watches a fraction of the world move on without Mitsuba in it.

 _I don't know what to do,_ Hijikata wants to say. _Tell me what to do with him._

Instead, he says, "Go home."

The glasses looks at him, and there is a world of pain in the eyes behind it. "Hijikata-san, we thought we might—"

"Go home," he repeats. _What the hell are you pitying me for? I look fine, don't I?_ "He's in no condition for visitors right now."

The China girl's shoulders sag, the movement so small he almost misses it. "What visitors? The Yorozuya has better things to do, yes?"

 _So why do you come here every day, dumbass?_ "Then you should go do them," he tells her.

She gets up and stomps away without another word. She doesn't look back at any of them. The permhead and the glasses glance at each other.

"You're terrible with women, Hijikata-kun," says the perm, still working at the excavation of his nose. "It's a wonder you ever got a fiancé, huh?"

Hijikata just meets his dead fish eyes because today, he doesn't feel the sting. He has five nicotine patches on each arm. Loss is at a construction site. It digs and digs and only finds snot, the sticky kind that can't be balled into a weapon and shot at a permhead.

The glasses winces. "Gin-san, really—"

"Go home," Hijikata says for the third time. His voice comes out even. Normal. "There's no need for you to be here. I'll look after Sougo."

Both men stare at him. The perm then shakes his head, jabs a snot-coated finger in Hijikata's direction, and looks at the glasses. "This here is called an idiot, a big mayonnaise idiot. Remember what one looks like, Pattsan. They're a danger to society and to themselves."

"Gin-san, _you're_ the biggest danger to society."

And with that, the perm gets up. He is as tall as Hijikata. The only eyes more dead than his is Sougo's. "Put our taxes to good use and buy yourself a brain," he says, then wipes his finger on Hijikata's coat and walks away.

The glasses-holder shakes its head. "We don't pay enough taxes to afford that, Gin-san." It turns to Hijikata. "We're sorry for intruding, Hijikata-san. The truth is, we _do_ want to check up on Okita-san, but we also want to ask how you're doing."

What was said earlier is a lie. Everyday, Hijikata doesn't feel like explaining himself to anyone. There are just nicotine-fueled moments in between when everything feels calm, and right, and he can open his mouth and talk in a voice flatter than Otae's chest.

He nods and says, "I'm doing just fine."

He steps past the glasses-holder, up the steps, and into the building. There is no sound except for a door closing. The morning light claws at windows and curtains, seizes dust motes mid-flight. The rest of the city feels far, far away.

He walks down the corridor, his fists in his pockets, and feels the lighter and the pack of cigarretes brush against his knuckles.

Loss digs and digs. There is no depth to his need for a goddamn smoke.

#

A/N: Still can't promise regularity, but I have vague plans and a timeline for this fic. Plus there have been a few one-shot ideas brewing in the back of my mind, so yeah. See you when I see you. Thank you very much for the patience and support.


End file.
